By Nell Mackenzie
LONDON (Reuters) -Hedge funds returned into markets last week to buy bank stocks having sold out of positions for eight straight weeks, a Goldman Sachs note shows.
Financial firms including U.S. banks became the second-most net bought stock behind real estate this year, said the note released on Friday and seen by Reuters on Tuesday.
That move came as markets digested what the largest U.S. banks had to say in their first-quarter earnings reports.
Trading desks at JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley brought in record revenue as markets boomed early in the year, while Wells Fargo earned more fees from clients quarterly presentations showed.
Hedge fund positions in financials as an overall stock sector reached a two-year high, said Goldman Sachs.
Hedge funds have taken mostly long positions on these financials stocks for five of the last seven weeks, said the note added. A long bet expects a stock price to rise.
This kind of buying outpaced the smaller number of hedge fund trades that were the result of hedge funds buying stock to exit short bets. A trader borrows stock in order to short it, or bet that it will decline in value, after which, the trader buys it back again.
While capital markets firms and banks took up most hedge fund buying last week, financial services firms that facilitate trading were the most bought kind of financial stock this year so far, said Goldman Sachs.
Global stock picking hedge fund performance rose over 2% between April 18 and 24, and systematic traders posted a 0.44% performance increase during the same time period, said the note.
(Reporting by Nell Mackenzie; editing by Dhara Ranasinghe and David Evans)
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